While there is a body of literature that considers the theory of criticalpedagogy, there is significantly less literature that specifically addresses the ways in which professors attempt to apply this theory in practice. This paper presents the results from a study that was designed, in part, to address this gap. Seventeen self-identified critical pedagogues participated in this qualitative research study. Participants reported their use of the following classroom practices, including: dialogue; group work; co-construction of syllabus; and (...) experiential activities. This paper critically examines the social justice-oriented nature of these critical classroom practices. (shrink)

The proponents of criticalpedagogy criticize the earlier Neo‐Marxist theories of education, arguing that they provide only a ‘language of critique’. By introducing the possibility of human agency and resistance, critical pedagogists attempt to develop not only a pedagogy of critique, but also to build a pedagogy of hope. Fundamentally, the aim of criticalpedagogy is twofold: 1) to correct the pessimistic conclusions of Neo‐Marxist theories, and 2) to transform a ‘language of critique’ (...) into a ‘language of possibility’ . Then, what political projects do critical pedagogies present to us? What alternative visions of schooling do critical pedagogies offer against the mainstream pedagogy? The purpose of this paper is to identify main projects of criticalpedagogy, and to explore overarching politics that underlie the field of criticalpedagogy. Although there are diverse theories and approaches in criticalpedagogy, three overarching projects can be identified, which I call: 1) the project of experience, 2) the project of anti‐system, and 3) the project of inclusion. Based on an examination of the general trends and characteristics of these three projects of criticalpedagogy, I argue that three prominent politics that underlie the field of criticalpedagogy are culturalist politics, self/identity politics, and grassroots politics. In trying to better understand why and how criticalpedagogy has developed the political stances as it has, the last part of the paper links these three politics to the historical developments of the New Left and the New Social Movements. (shrink)

In several enigmatic passages, Paulo Freire describes the pedagogy of the oppressed as a 'pedagogy of laughter'. The inclusion of laughter alongside problem-posing dialogue might strike some as ambiguous, considering that the global exploitation of the poor is no laughing matter. And yet, laughter seems to be an important aspect of the pedagogy of the oppressed. In this paper, I examine the role of laughter in Freire's criticalpedagogy through a series of questions: Are all (...) forms of laughter equally emancipatory? Certainly a revolutionary pedagogue can laugh, but should he or she, and what are the political (if not revolutionary) implications of this laughter? In order to shed new light on Freire's fleeting yet provocative comments, I turn to Jacques Rancière for his emphasis on the aesthetics of politics, and Paulo Virno who connects joke telling with critical theory. Overall, I argue that we need to take Freire's gesture toward a pedagogy of laughter seriously in order to understand the aesthetics of criticalpedagogy and the fundamental need for a redistribution of the sensible that underlies educational relations between masters and pupils. (shrink)

After publishing a series of books that many recognize as major works on contemporary education and criticalpedagogy, Henry Giroux turned to cultural studies in the late 1980s to enrich education with expanded conceptions of pedagogy and literacy.1 This cultural turn is animated by the hope to reconstruct schooling with critical perspectives that can help us to better understand and transform contemporary culture and society in the contemporary era. Giroux provides cultural studies with a critical (...)pedagogy missing in many versions and a sustained attempt to link criticalpedagogy and cultural studies with developing a more democratic culture and citizenry. The result is an intersection of criticalpedagogy and cultural studies that enhances both enterprises, providing a much-needed cultural and transformative political dimension to criticalpedagogy and a pedagogical dimension to cultural studies. Crucially, Giroux has linked his attempts to transform pedagogy and education with the project of promoting radical democracy. Giroux's earlier work during the 1970s and 1980s focused on educational reform, pedagogy, and the transformation of education to promote radical democracy. In Border Crossings (1992), Giroux notes "a shift in both my politics and my theoretical work" (1). The shift included incorporation of new theoretical discourses of poststructuralism and postmodernism, cultural studies, and the politics of identity and difference embodied in the new discourses of class, gender, race, and sexuality that proliferated in the post- 1960s epoch. Giroux criticized those who ignore "the sea changes in social theory" within the field of education and called for a transformation of education and pedagogy in the light of the new paradigms, discourses, and practices that were circulating by the 1990s. One of the key new discourses and practices that Giroux was henceforth to take up and develop involved the burgeoning discipline of cultural studies.. (shrink)

Criticalpedagogy has often been linked in the literature to faith traditions such as liberation theology, usually with the intent of improving or redirecting it. While recognizing and drawing from those previous linkages, Jacob Neumann goes further in this essay and develops the thesis that criticalpedagogy can not just benefit from a connection with faith traditions, but is actually, in and of itself, a practice of faith. In this analysis, he juxtaposes criticalpedagogy (...) against three conceptualizations of faith: John Caputo's blurring of the modernist division between faith and reason, Paul Tillich's argument that faith is “ultimate concern,” and Paulo Freire's theology and early Christian influences. Using this three-pronged approach, Neumann argues that regardless of how it is seen, criticalpedagogy manifests as a practice of faith “all the way down.”. (shrink)

This article develops the notion of resistance as articulated in the literature of criticalpedagogy as being both culturally sponsored and cognitively manifested. To do so, the authors draw upon John Dewey's conception of tools for inquiry. Dewey provides a way to conceptualize student resistance not as a form of willful disputation, but instead as a function of socialization into cultural models of thought that actively truncate inquiry. In other words, resistance can be construed as the cognitive and (...) emotive dimensions of the ongoing failure of institutions to provide ideas that help individuals both recognize social problems and imagine possible solutions. Focusing on Dewey's epistemological framework, specifically tools for inquiry, provides a way to grasp this problem. It also affords some innovative solutions; for instance, it helps conceive of possible links between the regular curriculum and the study of specific social justice issues, a relationship that is often under-examined. The aims of criticalpedagogy depend upon students developing dexterity with the conceptual tools they use to make meaning of the evidence they confront; these are background skills that the regular curriculum can be made to serve even outside social justice-focused curricula. Furthermore, the article concludes that because such inquiry involves the exploration and potential revision of students' world-ordering beliefs, developing flexibility in how one thinks may be better achieved within academic subjects and topics that are not so intimately connected to students' current social lives, especially where students may be directly implicated. (shrink)

Criticalpedagogy, by brealdng down the boundaries between the academy and society, creates opportunities for deep and transformative learning. Inspired by bell hooks' call to engage the hearts as well as the minds of learners, this essay demonstrates two teaching methods that engage college students in intellectual inquiry that potentially challenges and undermines societal power relations. The first literally broadens the walls of the classroom through community-based projects. The second constructs an in-class learning experience that cultivates inter-personal perspective (...) taking by simulating arbitrary and systemic inequality. Both approaches inherently question received relationships of power, within and outside of the classroom, by creating opportunities for learners to transgress the boundaries imposed by individual experience, enabling them to envision connections across social and economic difference. Through active learning experiences that connect affective responses to new learning, students gain insight into the ways systems of domination construct social privilege and structural oppression. Urging all of us to open our minds and hearts so that we can know beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable, so that we can think and rethink, so that we can create new visions, I celebrate teaching that enables transgressions—a movement against and beyond boundaries. It is that movement which makes education the practice of freedom. bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress (1994: 12). (shrink)

In this article, Rebecca Tarlau attempts to build a more robust theory of the relationship between education and social change by drawing on the conceptual tools offered in the criticalpedagogy and social movement literatures. Tarlau argues that while criticalpedagogy has been largely disconnected from its roots in political organizing, social movement literature has shifted away from a theory of educational processes within movement building. Specifically, she suggests that the currently dominant “framing perspective” in the (...) social movement literature is incredibly limited in its ability to analyze the pedagogical aspects of organizing. Conversely, while scholars of criticalpedagogy are extremely convincing when critiquing U.S. schooling, the field is weaker when theorizing about how teachers using criticalpedagogy can link to larger movements for social transformation. Critical pedagogues need more organizational thinking and social movement scholars need a more pedagogical focus. Tarlau suggests three conceptual frameworks for moving forward in this direction: the notion of social movements as pedagogical spaces, the role of informal educational projects in facilitating the emergence and strength of social movements, and the role of public schools as terrains of contestation that hold the possibility of linking to larger struggles for social justice. (shrink)

(2007). Democracy Still Matters: A Response to the Rejoinder of my Review of Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism: A CriticalPedagogy. Educational Studies: Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 180-182.

The article argues for an alliance of the capability approach developed by Amartya Sen with ideas from criticalpedagogy for undergraduate university education which develops student agency and well being on the one hand, and social change towards greater justice on the other. The purposes of a university education in this article are taken to include both intrinsic and instrumental purposes and to therefore include personal development, economic opportunities and becoming educated citizens. Core ideas from the capability approach (...) are outlined, with examples, before possible articulations of capability and Sen's notion of process freedom with criticalpedagogy are investigated. It is argued that each approach has something to offer when brought alongside as ‘critical capability pedagogies’, which seek to enhance and expand student experiences of learning and their ‘valuable beings and doings’. Finally core capabilities in a university education are considered and some of the problems of domesticating the capability approach addressed. (shrink)

We are in the midst of one of the most dramatic technological revolutions in history that is changing everything from the ways that we work, to the ways that we communicate with each other, to how we spend our leisure time. The technological revolution centers on information technology, is often interpreted as the beginnings of a knowledge society, and therefore ascribes education a central role in every aspect of life. This Great Transformation poses tremendous challenges to education to rethink its (...) basic tenets, to deploy the new technologies in creative and productive ways, and to restructure schooling in the light of the metamorphosis we are now undergoing. (shrink)

In a post‐9/11 world, where the politics of “us” versus “them” has reemerged under the umbrella of “terrorism,” especially in the United States, can we still envision an éducation sans frontières: a globalized and critical praxis of citizenship education in which there are no borders? If it is possible to conceive it, what might it look like? In this review essay, Awad Ibrahim looks at how these multilayered and complex questions have been addressed in three books: Peter McLaren and (...) Ramin Farahmandpur’s Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism, Nel Noddings’s Educating Citizens for Global Awareness, and Gita Steiner‐Khamsi’s The Global Politics of Educational Borrowing and Lending. Ibrahim concludes that, through creating a liminal, dialogical space between humanism, environmentalism, materialism, philosophy, and comparative education, the authors in these books offer a criticalpedagogy in which éducation sans frontières is possible — a project that is as visionary as it is hopeful. (shrink)

This essay is a review of Peter McLaren's most recent work, Capitalists and Conquerors: A CriticalPedagogy Against Empire. The essay situates McLaren's work in the philosophical tradition of Marxist Humanism, with reference specifically to Raya Dunayevskaya and Paulo Freire. Despite invoking the work of Dunayevskaya as a foundation for his own project, McLaren does not offer a robust explication of this important thinker, nor of the Hegelian‐Marxist discourse she embraced. Here, as in much of McLaren's work, the (...) reader is not offered rigorous analysis of his philosophical assumptions. The dearth of such analysis, this essay argues, compromises the critical thrust of McLaren's work. In turn, the essay sketches a framework for unpacking the Marxist Humanist paradigm, and, thereby, rethinking the philosophical foundations of contemporary criticalpedagogy. (shrink)

Because of Professor Cooley's prosecutorial review, I want to make clear at the outset that my rejoinder is not a codefendant's answer to a plaintiff's replication. Instead, I first attempt to provide an ?immanent? analysis of Cooley's indictment, in the sense of dealing with what dwells within his reasoning. A specific philosophical definition of ?immanent? reads: taking place within the mind of the subject, but having no effect outside (this does not apply to me as an outsider). I intend to (...) battle with Cooley up close?no ?dancing??my defense against his offense. In the second part, the focus will be on what I think is missing from Cooley's attempt to discredit McLaren and Farahmandpur's book. His decision or failure to deal with what Marx and the most effective Marxists have written, and how some of this provided analyses that could be and/or was acted upon, may be more serious than his beating up on the book's authors. (shrink)

In this essay, Scott Ellison examines a line of critical thought in educational theory that has unapologetically sought transcendence in the face contemporary social and political conditions. Under the banner of criticalpedagogy, Peter McLaren sees this current period of globalization as representing a worldwide historical crisis requiring a revolutionary struggle that, in turn, is dependent upon a revitalization of criticalpedagogy as the necessary tool for overcoming global relations of domination. Armed with Marxist theory (...) and politics, McLaren seeks to use classrooms as social locations for fostering class struggle and global revolution. However, seeking to transcend today's globalized social processes and structures presents unique challenges that McLaren fails to overcome. He is a victim of the utopic turn. In this essay, Ellison offers a sympathetic reading and critique of McLaren's most recent theoretical work; undertakes a modest and preliminary recovery of Marxian theory and method; and concludes by briefly exploring the applicability and utility of this recovery for educational practices in this historical moment. (shrink)